THREE

IN THE DISTANCE, beyond the Expressway, I see the sun reflect from the dome of the Williamsburg Savings Bank. My body no longer aches. I unbutton my coat and walk past Broadway, under the pillars of the elevated subway. Perhaps, I think, I will even be able to sleep on my back tonight. The doors of stores are open now and the streets are busy with women shopping. From the open window of a Puerto Rican luncheonette come the odors of frying foods: bananas, pigs’ tails, fish. I see one of my students, Jésus Martinez, of class 8-12, peddling his aluminum delivery cart in and out of the el pillars. His girl friend sits on top of the cart, chewing gum and reading a love-comic. Jésus sings.

I smile at them, but they do not see me. In the window of the Botánica Religiosa are statues of Jesus, gold crucifixes, religious candles. Beyond, where the sun dusts the inside of the store, herbs and hair applications and oils are arranged like medicines. A large black and orange sign advertises Rocio Dama de Suerte. An old woman smiles at me from behind a curtain, her face toothless. I cannot tell if she is Spanish or gypsy.

At the Yeshiva, I stop across the street and watch the cowboys playing in their schoolyard. The younger students are at work, pushing brooms across the concrete, cleaning the yard of puddles. It is like spring and once again I feel excited. My cowboys, with their black hats, their sidelocks, their fringed tsitsis flailing from their open shirts, are playing punchball and stickball and basketball as if they were ordinary American boys. They scream at the younger ones to keep the infield dry. A running cowboy is out as he arrives at second base. His hat falls to the ground. He picks it up, kisses it, tucks his sidelocks behind his ears and goes back to the sidelines, cursing. On the basketball court two cowboys are choosing with their fingers. Maybe, I think, maybe I will speak to Ruben and he will make Chassidic voodoo dolls. The thought pleases me. Mendel Kupietzky, reputed to be the great grandson of the legendary Reb Mendel, lofts a fly ball toward center field. It travels beyond the reach of Nachman Solovaychik, and lands in a puddle of slush and water. I laugh to myself. Mendel streaks around the bases, his hair uncurling from behind his ears. “Mad-Man Meyers!” I hear, and I know they have seen me.

It does not bother me, though. I swing my briefcase at my side and cross the street. Menachem Schiffenbauer sits on a folding chair behind home plate, waiting his turn, his head bobbing up and down as he reads from a huge leather-covered book. “Mad-Man Meyers! Mad-Man Meyers!” The cowboys are chanting in unison. Above the entrance to the Yeshiva, in blackening concrete, it is carved: “There Is Nothing in the World Which Does Not Contain a Commandment.” My cowboys have taken up a new chorus. “Meyers is a momzer… Meyers is a momzer….”

I laugh at them, caged inside their wire screen, and I enter the building. I smell raisin wine. The aroma is powerful and it cuts through the heavy air. The corridor walls are chipped and stained, the tile floor slippery. I hear the sound of men, complaining in Yiddish about mortgages, leases, tenants, interest rates. They are huddled in a tiny room and I pass them quickly. In a room next to them, young boys with the faces of old men sway back and forth amid piles of books as they chant their arguments to one another. At the end of the corridor a Negro janitor leans against a mop, a paper skullcap perched on the side of his head. I pass him and smell bourbon. “How ya doin’, Rabbi?” he says to me. His eyes are glassy.

I descend to the basement. I open my locker and a cat leaps forward. It lands on a seat in the front row. Its back arches. I move toward it and it scampers from the room. On my desk is a sack of rotten apples. I remove it and I realize that I am still smiling. My cowboys enter the room, Menachem Schiffenbauer leading them. They sweat from their games, their eyes dance with mischief, but Harry Meyers is unaffected. This afternoon, I know, they cannot touch me.

They begin as usual: they shout, they throw things, they refuse to work, but it is nothing to me. I smile at them and they sense that something has changed. Even Menachem Schiffenbauer ceases to translate the mysteries of the Cabala. He looks at me from his deep blue eyes, perplexed. “I know something also,” I say to him, and smile. My briefcase is beside my desk, my Spanish books are in front of me. I recite the lesson, lecturing to them on the irregular verb, pedir. Pido, pides, pide… My cowboys try to ignore me, but that is all right also. I continue. Pida, pidas, pida, pidamos… Old men pass our room, but they do not glance at us. They carry briefcases.

It is difficult to intimidate Harry Meyers, you see. The longer I go on, the quieter my cowboys become. I look at them, their shirts and vests covered with drippings of food. Their eyes begin to flicker. “Cowboys,” I say. “Cowboys of the schoolyard. Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays—they would laugh at you also.”

A piece of chalk flies by me, splintering against the blackboard. From the start it has amazed me, the passion they devote to their teams and heroes. I will tell you something: when it comes to memorizing statistics and records, they are geniuses. In the back row, Mordecai Fruchthandler rises and throws his Spanish book into the air. “¡Bésame culo!” he cries. The others giggle. I am unaffected. They stamp on the floor and pound on their desks. “¡Bésame culo! ¡Bésame culo!” they cry. “Cowboys,” I whisper. “Cowboys of the schoolyard.” They are listening to me, I know. “Sandy Koufax would laugh at you also.”

The madness leaves their eyes. They turn to one another, helpless. Menachem Schiffenbauer does not look up. My cowboys are monkeys. I continue with the lesson and they repeat the words with me. “Llegue, llegues, llegue, lleguemos…” I assign a written exercise and they work quietly. I do not smile anymore. Well. They are boys, also, I suppose. I look down at them, at their heads covered with silk skullcaps, at the locks of hair which curl about their ears. They seem very small to me. When five-thirty comes they wait for me to dismiss them. Then they slink from the room, their Spanish books under their arms. Morris would be proud of me, I suppose, but such a thought does not give me much pleasure.

I am tired. I rest in my chair, the empty desks before me. I arrange their papers in a neat stack and put a paper clip on them. Outside it must already be dark. I open my briefcase, and put their papers inside. I take the doll in my hands and lift it from the briefcase. The pins rise from its chest in a “V.” I tremble. The light seems to dim. The doll falls from my hands. It makes no noise. I look again, but I do not touch it. It rests on its back, smiling at me. I seize my briefcase and remove its contents, piling Hebrew books on Spanish books, papers on papers, but there are no hatpins at the bottom.

I replace my books, one by one, my eyes fixed on the doll. Its hands are clasped. The pins glisten. My heart pounds heavily. I put my overcoat on and then sit down to struggle with my galoshes. The doll watches me. I remember the note which came this morning and I feel Ruben’s eyes, laughing at me. I place the doll carefully in my briefcase. I pull the zipper closed. I leave the room and start up the staircase. I wonder about the change that has come over my cowboys today. It was too easy, after all. Perhaps they were only pretending. Outside, they are waiting for me. I stop and go back down to the basement. The lights have been turned out and I feel my way along the corridor with my fingertips.

I turn the corner and in the Rebbe’s room there is a light. I look in. The Rebbe sits in a large maroon chair, his fur-trimmed hat tilted back as he sips wine and sings to himself. His eyes are closed, his beard is caked with dried food. His eyes open and he looks my way, but in the darkness he does not seem to see me. He holds his own face between his palms and he sings of the bird whose song of praise burst its own body. I do not move. He stands up and his eyes glow. Only the love of God will heal the hearts of mankind. He turns slowly in a circle and claps his hands, dancing lightly on his aged feet. He hops silently on one foot, in a circle. Around and around. He prays for all those who died to smuggle him from Poland during the Nazi occupation, of the Rebbes who masqueraded in his place so that he could make his way from country to country. He sings a song about each man who died while pretending to be him: in Budapest, in Rumania, in Greece, in Syria, in Palestine. He throws his head back and drinks, wine running down both sides of his mouth, into his beard. He slumps back into his chair, smiling. His eyes look through me. They close. He begins to snore.

I hurry past his room and out the side exit. My briefcase is heavy. The cowboys are not in sight. I breathe deeply. It has grown cold again and I button my coat to the top. I smell wine. I think back and wonder if there had been any time when one of the cowboys could have had access to my briefcase. I walk away from the Yeshiva, toward Marcy Avenue and the subway, trying to tell myself that nothing has happened, to clear my head, to shrug off what I have seen. But I cannot. I do not fool myself. At each corner, each tree, I expect to be attacked. I am shivering. The streets are empty.

I see Jackson’s puzzled black face and I think of little Gil, in the snow. The sight is a peaceful one. My heart slows. A woman yells in Spanish from a window overhead. “¡Espéreme, batardo! ¡Ahora! ¡Espéreme!” I try to recall the events of the day, one by one. Nobody, I am certain, could have touched my briefcase. I am on Broadway now and under the el pillars there is life. At the corners, groups of monkeys plan their evenings. Above me, a train roars through the night. The cold air has made my nose drip. I stop and look up, expecting to see the entrance to the subway, but I am at the wrong corner. Harry, Harry, it happens sooner than you think. I turn and walk back along Broadway. When I stop this time I am at Have-meyer Street. It is no use. If Jackson’s brother is near, let him have me. I will not fight. I would never learn to sleep on my back anyway. My briefcase grows heavier and I switch hands. Danny, I suppose, will mourn for me.

There are no lights on in the store windows. The street corners are deserted. I hear no trains. The sidewalks are slippery from the ice. I hear giggling. Around the el pillars, cats move. When I am gone, I wonder if they will leave my story on the bulletin board. It is all right, Simon. It is all right. I am cold. I hear giggling again and glance to the right, squinting through my glasses. In the doorway of the Aponte Travel Agency two forms are locked together. A neon sign flickers on and off, in red. I move closer. The giggling is that of a girl. A boy presses her against the window, his hands, I see now, working furiously under her sweater. The girl stares at me, over the boy’s shoulder, and she chews gum. I cannot take my eyes from her. The boy is shorter than she is, coming to her chin only, and she seems, despite the paint on her face, to be no more than thirteen years old. There is a mole on her left cheek, and hairs grow from it. Still, she is lovely. I know her face, I realize. I step forward. In the doorway it is warmer. A poster advertises cut-rate family trips back to Puerto Rico. The girl chews and giggles. She has seen me. The boy’s hands stop moving. He turns around.

It is my monkey. “Ruben!” I exclaim and rush forward. The girl slips away. Light dances from my monkey’s eyes. He tries to escape but the doorway is too narrow. I corner him and press him against the window, my right hand at his throat.

“What you want?”

“You will come with me—” I say. He struggles. “You will come with me,” I repeat. He kicks, but his foot hits the briefcase. “There are laws, Ruben,” I say. “I have seen you also.”

He squirms and his eyes do not look into mine. “I got to be home for supper,” he says.

“I will buy you your supper.” The words are out before I know it. Ruben’s body goes limp. He eyes me, his head to one side. He smiles slowly.

“You mean it?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. I have no choice, after all. I know it at once. He touches my hand and I relax my grip. He does not try to run away. I think of the doll and I look closely at Ruben’s face. His eyes look back at me now, and, in truth, they seem calm and innocent. “Yes,” I say again.

We walk along Broadway and he stays a step behind me. Over a faded red flannel shirt, he wears only a thin denim jacket. He talks freely. He tells me about his younger brothers and sisters, his grandmother, his mother who is sick with a coughing sickness, the welfare man who is always checking on them. He says nothing about school. I feel pressure on the sides of my head, at the temples. The first restaurant we come to is a Chinese one and we enter and take a booth at the back. He blows into his cupped hands to warm them. I hang up my overcoat, but I leave my briefcase under the table, next to my feet. Ruben tells me about the way his mother beats him when he is bad.

“But she getting pretty weak now,” he says. My eyes tear from the cold.” She make these funny noises from her chest. She real sick, Mister Meyers. It worse now, with the winter.” He seems very much at ease. His face is open. “She keep trying to get us in a project where you get more heat, but you got to have a husband to get into the project. That’s the rules of the welfare.” The waiter comes and I order for us. Ruben is laughing now, pleased with himself. “I make one of the dolls of the man from the welfare!” He shakes his head. “It don’t help. They say to call when things go bad but you live on the welfare, you not allowed to have a phone.”

I nod.

“She a real sick woman,” Ruben says, and briefly, I see his eyes flash. “Real sick.” I remember what Rafael said about the doll of his mother. Our soup comes and Ruben begins drinking it, carefully at first, then with increasing abandon. He looks up at me and smiles. “It’s warm,” he says. I watch him as I sip mine and I feel myself relax. I too am warm inside. “This soup real crazy,” he says. I smile and I say to myself: after all, Harry, he is only a boy.

“Is this your first time in such a restaurant?” I ask. He nods, his mouth full. “Is it all right for you to be here?” I say. “Perhaps your mother will worry that you are not at home.”

“She don’t care,” he says. “I only make trouble for her, she says. It easier when we not all around.”

When the main dish comes, he hardly looks at me and that is all right also. I watch him devour his food and I eat from my own plate, pausing now and then to sip tea. I am feeling somewhat better. My nose has stopped running and my eyes are dry. I feel very tired, though. It has been a long day. It would not be so terrible if Harry Meyers could trade in some of his parts, I think. My toes are numb. I remember the dinner with Danny. My muscles tighten. I look down and think of the wrinkles Ruben has drawn on the bulbous head. While he eats I open the briefcase. He talks about his friend Manuel Alvarez who came on the boat with him from Puerto Rico. I am not interested. I take the doll from the briefcase and I keep it under the table, on my lap. My chest hurts and I realize I have been eating too fast. I drink some cold water.

“I seen you,” Ruben says. “Me and Manuel.”

I do not respond to his statement. It is time, you see. My right hand moves. I thrust the doll in front of my monkey’s face. “Did you do this—?” I ask.

He nods. “You know I did. I real sorry, Mister Meyers,” he says. “I no mean nothing. That the truth. You a pretty good teacher.”

He goes back to his food. I slap his fork away and it clinks to the floor. “What about the pins?” I ask. It is difficult to whisper, to keep my voice low. “The pins, Ruben—”

He bends away from me and picks his fork up from the floor. He wipes it on a napkin. I look around the corner of our booth. The restaurant is almost empty. At a corner table a Chinese family eats quietly, a large brown fish on a platter in the middle of their table. The waiters sit near them, eating their own supper, their rice bowls raised to their mouths. “The pins, Ruben. The pins—” He shrugs. “I no mean nothing,” he repeats. “I telling you the truth. That just to have some fun. I do it of everybody—”

I lay the doll down and reach across the table, grabbing my monkey’s wrist. My heart pounds unevenly. “Before,” I say. “I took the pins out. Who put them back in—?”

He shrugs again. “I told you I no mean nothing,” he says, and twists his wrist loose. “That the truth.” His eyelids drop. “After you catch me in the room I get out of that school real quick and go down to the river to see the boats break up the ice.”

He looks at me and his eyes are soft and puzzled. They are a true monkey’s eyes. The doll is between us, next to the pot of tea. There is nothing else to say, I realize. I breathe in. The doll seems very small. I place it next to me, on the plastic cushion. I drink some tea to calm myself. “This food real crazy,” Ruben says again. “I got to come back here.” I touch the doll and unclasp its hands. Harry, Harry, you are playing the fool. Enough. I put the doll back in the briefcase. Ruben smiles at me. I wonder about Danny’s questions concerning next year. “You talk to him sometime and you see.” Ruben is speaking.

“I will see what?” I ask.

“That Manuel not so C.R.M.D. like people think.” Brown sauce drips down my monkey’s chin. “I tell you something—he know the lifetime batting averages of every Spanish ballplayer.” I relax somewhat. “We see you lots, me and Manuel, where we work.”

“You see me?” I gather my last bit of fried rice together with a fork.

“Where you live—” His eyes dance. “It surprise you, what we do to make money.” He puts his chin close to his plate and sweeps the last bit of food into his mouth. “You can get a lot of things if you got money.”

We are quiet. In the half-yellow light of the restaurant his forehead does not seem ugly. I taste garlic and think of Nydia and Carlos. I picture her eyes, downcast, as she passes along the staircase. Ruben asks me why I am in Williamsburg at such a late hour. I picture Nydia when I saw her the first time, the day she returned from the hospital, smiling shyly, asking if I wanted to look at the baby. I tell Ruben that I am a teacher of cowboys. At the word cowboys he laughs. The baby was wrapped in a soft blue blanket. Carlos’ grandmother was there also. I explain to my monkey that I teach them Spanish and he laughs even more. I lean forward and tell him that I do it for the money. Harry Meyers will never be obligated to anybody’s welfare. Ruben sets his jaw and nods. On Friday nights, he says, he and Manuel and Manuel’s sister listen outside the windows of the Yeshiva. He speaks with passion of the way the cowboys dance and sing, and of how Manuel tries to imitate them. He cannot wait to tell Manuel what I have named them.

Our dessert comes. I wonder also: what will I do next year. Ruben uses the word cowboy and I laugh with him. I tell him about Morris’s fears. Ruben does not laugh. “They got magic, Mister Meyers,” he says. “I seen them.” I remember the story Morris and I laughed at when we were boys: about the Rebbe who was such a cowboy that, although he had ten children, he did not know his wife had a wooden stump for a leg until her funeral. Ruben’s eyes are bright. The cowboys are harmless, I assure him. I think of Rabbi Akiba, who set out from home when he was already forty years old, to learn to read and write. Later his wife was plagued by his disciples, who demanded details of his behavior during intercourse. Ruben is talking about Manuel’s sister. Her name is Mara Alvarez and she is in a special school for Catholic girls.

“Ah, Ruben, Ruben,” I say, looking at him across from me. “Tell me something, Ruben Fontanez. What will you be doing in ten years?”

“I be making it—”

“No, Ruben,” I say. “Listen to me. What will you be doing?” He shrugs and eats from his plate of ice cream. I know what it is I have been waiting for, you see, what I want to say to him. “Ruben, listen to me,” I say again. “Put down your spoon and listen.” He does as I ask, and his eyes tell me that it is true, that I can reach him, that he will hear me. I think of Rabbi Akiba and though I know such a thought is silly, I proceed. I lean toward him and whisper. “Listen, Ruben Fontanez. You must get an education. Do you understand? You must get out of Williamsburg. Harry Meyers is telling you something. Do you hear me?” His eyes do not blink. He wipes his lip with a finger. “Listen to me, Ruben Fontanez. If you do not get an education and get out, do you know what you will be? In ten years, in twenty years, in thirty years—? It will be the same forever, Ruben. Until your body dries up. You will be a filthy monkey with filthy children all around you. You will all be hungry. Do you hear me?” The door of the restaurant opens. The Chinese family is leaving. The cold air from the outside reaches us and I shiver. “In ten years, Ruben, your life will be at an end. You will be drunk half the time. Your children will cry in your ears. Your friends will be in jail. You will be loving somebody else’s wife and yours will be grabbing the plumber. You will be making fifty dollars a week and your nights will be endless.” I am not sure I have meant to say all these things, but it is all right. Sarah is pleased. I feel pressure on my eyes. My feet are cold. “Do you hear me?” His face is serious. He nods and blinks his eyes, then nods again, slowly. “You are still a boy—enjoy life, have fun,” I continue. “But get out, Ruben!” The words come with a rush of air. “Do you hear me?” I breathe out, exhausted.

“I listening to you,” he says. “I listening, Mister Meyers.” Then he smiles at me, and, my heart full, I reach across the table and take his hand, pressing it.

He finishes his ice cream and we do not talk again until we are outside. I walk alongside him and he asks if I would like to see where he lives. I nod, and we walk on, under the el pillars, my briefcase at my side. It is cold, but I do not mind. Ruben is talking about Manuel’s sister again and he wants to know if I have ever seen her. I say that I have not. He tells me that she is very beautiful. We turn a corner and walk down a dark street. “That girl you catch me with,” Ruben says, embarrassed, “that not Manuel’s sister. I want you to know.” He would like to tell me more, but I do not encourage him. It is his business.

“It pretty bad in the winter, when you got no place warm to go to. Sometimes you sneak into the movies, but that not so good.” I smell garlic again, and the odors of frying fish. Ahead of us, I see lights. I hear the sounds of electric guitars and tambourines. In the front doors of buildings, people chatter in Spanish. A bottle crashes to the sidewalk behind us. A baritone voice rises above the sound of electric guitars, of portable radios.

“No me olvides…porque lo quiero…no me olvides….”

“This my block,” Ruben says. He seems sad now. I remark on the music, the spirit of his neighborhood, but my remarks, I know, are feeble. He shrugs. “It not so nice to be poor,” he says. “What you said before.” He points to the third story of an old tenement. There are flowerpots on the fire escape, a candle in the window. I see the shape of a heavy woman, silhouetted, rocking a child in her arms. “That’s where I live,” he says.

“Ah, Ruben, Ruben,” I say. “I must go.”

“Thank you for the food, Mister Meyers,” he says.

“Thank you, Ruben—” I begin, and, impulsively, I lean down, and not without tenderness, kiss him on the forehead.

He smiles up at me in the dim light, and suddenly his eyes are on fire again. He laughs and leaps away from me. “¡Maricón!” he shouts. “¡Viejo!” He dances around me, screaming. Windows above us open. His eyes are the eyes that were in the classroom when he held the doll. People call from the windows. I hear music. “Ruben—?” I ask. “Why—?” He laughs again. “¡Anciano!” a woman shouts down at me. “Go home. For shame. Go home!” “Ruben?” I plead. He dances around me, making mysterious motions. He runs at me, then retreats. “¡Pato! ¡Pato!” I hear. “¡Maricón! ¡Maricón!” Ruben charges at me and snatches my briefcase. “He kiss me and hold my hand!” he shouts to the open windows. They hurl down abuse. I look up at the faces of monkeys, on both sides of the street now, leaning over fire escape railings. Ruben comes at me again, holding the doll in his hand, outstretched. “Give it to me,” I say. “Please—” He jumps up and down, his feet moving with miraculous speed. I hear drums beating. From the entrance to Ruben’s building, a crowd moves toward me. One man has a belt wrapped around his fist. His shirt is open, revealing a massive chest. I shudder. I see the doll. The drums are louder. Then Ruben is standing next to me. He puts the doll back into the briefcase and hands it to me. “Run!” he whispers. “I see you soon. Where you live.” I look at him. “Run!” I try to touch him, to question him. “Run!” he says. “Run!”

I turn and do as he says. The shouts follow me down the street, Ruben’s voice above them all, laughing. “¡Maricón!… Maricón…” I race down dark streets, the screams behind me, and I do not stop until I am on the platform of the elevated subway. I stand in the shadows. My heart pounds heavily and I fear for my life. On each side of my chest there is a sharp pain. I see the lights of the train, as it curls toward me from the open sky. I board it. Nobody follows me. The train goes over the Williamsburg Bridge and I do not look out the windows. At Delancey Street I change for the uptown IND. In the next car I see a boy who looks like Manuel, leaning forward and puffing on a cigarette. A policeman comes through, but I do not look at his face.

At 72nd Street I get out. I pass Verdi Square and the Dori Donut Shop without raising my eyes. On my own street, outside the Park West Hospital, there is another policeman. Someday, I think, someday the police will guard all the hospitals, they will be assigned to the waiting rooms of doctors, the corridors of laboratories. It is coming. Believe me. In my building I hear Carlos and Nydia screaming at one another. I hurry by their apartment, and up the stairs. A telephone is ringing. I unlock my door but I do not answer the phone. I put my briefcase down on my desk and undress quickly. Tomorrow. What will I do tomorrow, I wonder. I lie on my back in the darkness and I think about next year. Tomorrow I will telephone Mrs. Davies and tell her to get a substitute teacher. I get up and drink some water, but it does not help. The pains in my chest are worse. Warm milk would be good. There is no milk in the refrigerator, though. Perhaps Morris is right. Perhaps it would be best. I feel Ruben’s eyes upon me. I see the doll, smiling. My phone rings again. I count. It rings eleven times, then stops. When the Muslims governed Spain they were good to the Jews. That is no small thing. I should let my cowboys know. I remember the party my father made every year to celebrate the Emperor Franz Joseph’s birthday. All the neighbors and relatives came. I drank wine until I fell asleep. I will telephone Mrs. Davies. It is settled. I will stay at home and read, in Spanish. It has been a long time since I read Don Quixote de la Mancha. The pains spread through me. It is no use. I pull the covers around me and turn onto my side, then to my stomach. My nose drips onto my pillow. The telephone begins ringing again. I draw the pillow closer to me. My toes are cold. Ruben, Ruben. Listen to me, Ruben Fontanez.